


The Old Times And The New

by fandomine



Series: Hanahaki [1]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Female Apprentice (The Arcana), Male Apprentice (The Arcana), hanahaki
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-01 19:25:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19184122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomine/pseuds/fandomine
Summary: The witch Asteria falls ill just as a dark part of her husband's past comes to light.





	1. The Ides of March

 Asteria had fallen ill in March, in the Spring, which we know as the season of life and giving and wholeness. This would turn out to be terribly ironic.

But, before we get into all the gory details, I suppose we can do with some background information. We'll need to jump forward for this, paying a visit to our favorite Medical Intern and Doctor's Assistant, who work in the Vesuvian palace, the best they got. They are also both Damien's kids. This last part explains a lot about their hopeless ineptitude. 

* * *

 

_"The Hanahaki Disease," said Adam smartly. "Is an illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one sided love. The flowers will eventually clog up your respiratory system, leading to eventual death."_

_The medical intern closed the old, battered textbook. A cloud of dust hit him in the face._

_"I could have told you that, you know" said the doctor's assistant. "I have those books memorized."_

_"Swell. Do you want an award?"_

_"No need to be r-rude."_

_Meanwhile, Asteria and Damien were looking on in horror- not at the two squabbling over Asteria's medical concerns, but at some point in space which was very dark and very disheartening, nearly heart-shattering. Someone in a far-off land had won. It seemed the last of their hope had finally been blown out. But there was still a question left hanging in the air, and Asteria would be damned if she died without an answer._

_She coughed up a rose petal, yet another in the hundreds which have been showing up over the last few weeks._ _The sound of her hacking reached the far walls, echoing back. The doctors stopped arguing._

_And it, it filled the room- the silent sound of_ _time ticking away towards an unwelcome end._

This has been a glimpse into the future, brought to you by an as-good-as-omnipotent being. We'll come back to this moment soon, but now...

Now it's time to go back to the start. 

* * *

 

**A month before**

**March 15th**

A relentless Winter had been plaguing Vesuvia for months, but it had finally, _finally_ folded to the blooming flowers of spring just a few days ago. This was the cue for Asteria and Damien, our antagonist and protagonist (respectively, or maybe not), to run up the slope leading up to their Picnic Hill; they were tripping over their feet in a childish race to see who could get to the top first. The Picnic Hill was reserved for, well, having picnics, as well as indulging in blissful, carefree, wonderful playfulness. Neither of them could claim to be  _playful_ often, especially Asteria, who was a respectable adult with a respectable job, busied with respectable adult-y things like rent and regret. All of those stuffy things, however, faded whenever they came to this hill. Everything, from the flowers to the old willow tree, were inexplicably perfect. They always were. 

They'd had their first kiss here. They'd gotten engaged here. They'd gotten married here. Nothing could touch them here. Asteria put down the picnic basket, and Damien sat down on the grass, and for just a bit, they were playful. 

Damien had been attempting to serenade Asteria with a 25-year-old ukulele and and a playlist of old love songs, all of which made Asteria giggle with nearly-sickly sweetness. He was now strumming along to a 58-year-old song: Elvis'  _Can't Help Falling In Love._ Which is a brilliant song, I think. Damien had been there when it was released in California, in another Universe, and, since Elvis was never going to make an appearance in this one, Damien had no problem at all with taking credit for it.

" _Like a river blows...._ Wait, no,  _flows."_  

"You can't remember the lyrics to your own song?" she teased. 

"Oh, ha ha ha. Leave me be, I'm old." 

He took the opportunity to re-tune the guitar, which was really just him trying to look like he knew what he was doing as he fiddled with the knobs on the sides of the neck. 

" _Wise men say...._ " He started over and strummed, and the strings twanged terribly. "Sorry, sorry. I guess Old Faithful is getting old too. Just, take my word for it that used to sound much better, back when the both of us were a bit younger."

"You and the guitar?"

"Yeah."

"When you used to play all those concerts in Altador, right?" she said. "Like a rockstar." 

He paused. 

"Um, yeah," he said, only this time very dry and just a bit croaky. 

He was thinking back to when he'd lived in Altador- in the old times- to those sandy plains. He had, indeed, hosted many a concert with his 'band', which was, in reality, less impressive than he made it sound to her. It had just been him, his friend, a fiddle, and a wireless microphone Damien had stolen from 1966. It was a sad a two-man setup which performed in the town square every night on a cardboard box. As they become more obnoxious, their popularity climbed, and they finally found a footing, albeit brief, in that foreign desert land. Those days were behind him now, of course. But he often told Asteria stories about it; there was always an embellishment. But the fondness was real. 

The band's success or lack thereof aside, he had never played the guitar for a concert, despite what Asteria might have thought, despite what Damien had let her think. You might as well know the truth of it all- even if Asteria never did, and never will.

 

 _Why does this song sound so familiar?_ Damien thought suddenly. 

Thisguitar had been reserved for solo shows. They happened every night, and they'd go something like this: 

* * *

 

_"Hello."_

_"Hi."_

_There's a castle in the middle of the desert, with a large bedroom on the eastern side fit for a princess; or, perhaps, a to-be Queen. A balcony had been built sticking out of it so that the Princess could walk out and survey her lands. She could appreciate the day from up here, the night. Most importantly, she was in the perfect position for looking down at the thick round wall surrounding the castle._

_The wall shouldn't have been climbable. But, somehow, young Damien found his way up there every single night._

_"How do you do that?" Eve would ask, every time._

_Damien would press a finger to his teasing lips. "A magician never reveals his secrets."_

_"I never see you actually climb the wall."_

_"That's a start. Tell me when you've figured it out."_

_She'd drum her fingers on the balcony railing impatiently. "As your Princess, I demand you tell me," she'd say, but she was secretly enjoying the whole charade._

_"You're not my princess, dear," he'd respond simply. "You're just my Eve."_

_And that would make her smile._

_She smiled a lot, the same plaster smile for diplomats and royalty and the court, but she only ever smiled genuinely when Damien came to her window._ _He brought her a different song every day. Once, when she asked him where he got all these songs from, he told her the truth: "I go to different worlds and get them from the best musicians of every age, just for you." Of course she didn't believe him, but, you know- love._

_That night, he'd strummed on that guitar The Song. That song. It became her favorite, and so night after night, he kept playing it._ _With only the nightingales to witness._

Life was much better back then. But sometimes, it was also much worse. 

* * *

 

 

But Asteria didn't need to know all this. 

Damien kept strumming. He was growing increasingly aware that his fingers had started moving to the rhythm of muscle memory, achingly familiar, like a hand slipping into a plaster mold of itself. " _Wise men say,_ _Only fools rush in,_

 _But I can't help,_ _Falling in love with you...._ "

He was starting to think, and his eyes were starting to drift. 

(A castle. A balcony. A night sky.) 

He struggled to keep strumming and to keep his mind in check. He played with the strings a little bit. but they'd gone silent. 

" _Shall I stay? Would it be a sin,_

_If I can't help falling in love with you..."_

(A white figure in the dark.) 

 

The old times, which had been sometimes better than now, and sometimes much worse, filled his mind. He played with the strings a bit. There was a look on his face; his brows were tense, his mouth was tight, and there was something in the laugh lines near his eyes that didn't look cheery at all. Asteria was laying on her stomach, a cheerily colored picnic blanket keeping grass stains off her dress. She propped herself up on her elbows and called his name loudly, trying to get his attention, but it was obvious that he'd left the building. His feet were planted square in this Universe, but his mind- and his heart- were in another.

His fingers fell from the guitar. He looked something like a nearly defeated man, disappointed in his own weakness; like a wrestler stepping into the ring and deciding he was definitely going to lose. 

_Why did she have to bring up the old times?_

He only looked up when choking sounds started to come from Asteria's mouth. 

"Miss Asteri-" 

A flower petal fell on the ground. It cut him off, as if landing on the ground had made some unbearable sound. 

It was _red_. 

It was dark red, and wet, and blood was filling her mouth, and staining the crevices between her teeth, and she didn't know what to do, and neither did Damien, and all they could do was panic as the petal turned into a pile and the pile grew, and grew, and grew. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asteria belongs to batterwitch.tumblr.com


	2. Urgent Care

As far as Vesuvias go (of which there are many), Damien had never been a big fan of the hospitals. He once described them as "absolutely primeval", during an incident involving a twisted ankle and a five hour long wait. 

"They didn't even give me an Asprin!" he's proclaimed. This was met with many befuddled looks, and he came to the conclusion then that the entirety of Vesuvian healthcare was- well, shitty. Not to mention, virtually nonexistent. 

So when Asteria began to choke, crumpling against the side of the hill, blood smeared against her lips like badly applied lipstick, he immediately took her to a more suitable place. No; the best place. An institution forced to conform to the strict standards of the law, as well as the even stricter five-point rating system of Google Maps. A modern place. This meant there was a manager to which he could take out his frustrations- if it came to that- or, at the very least, a Yelp page.

"Hi, do you have an appointment?"

"Um." Damien drummed his fingers on the counter impatiently. "Didn't know you had to make one at an Urgent Care."

"No. Walk-ins are welcome," the receptionist said, unwelcomingly. "Have you been here before?" 

"I think so." 

Her telephone rang. 

She answered it slowly. His drumming fingers were becoming frantic. 

She hung up. 

She typed something into the computer.

She left to visit the printer. 

This was taking ages. Later, he was going to leave a strongly worded review on this place's Yelp page. 

Finally, she turned around. "I just need to see a valid ID, sir."

"Yes, yes, okay-" 

He snatched his wallet from his pocket. It was thick and black, bulging with dozens of different ID's. The receptionist squinted over her pink-framed glasses. Dozens of different aliases and versions of his face flashed by, too quickly for her to make out; she leaned back again, bored. 

"One second, one second," he mumbled irately. "My apologies, I belong to a fair amount of, er, clubs." 

"Uh huh."

There was no good reason for any normal person to have that many ID cards. She thought about bringing it up later to her husband to break up the monotonous routine of watching the nightly news; dinner; going to bed; waking up again. Repeat. _ "There was a man with at least fifty ID cards at the clinic today,"  _ she'd say.  _ "I think he might be mafia." _ Her Peter would laugh at her and they would watch the nightly news; dinner; go to bed; wake up again. 

Repeat. 

While Damien was busy, she steeped into her little fantasy of tall, dark and mysterious Mafia Men in her clinic. Indeed, she wanted to leave the reality of this starchy clinic just as much as Damien did. Germs clung to the seats, boredom to the walls. It was much too stuffy. 

And for Damien, the panic was starting to boil. Asteria coughed violently behind him. He picked up the pace. 

_ This damn ID card has to be here somewhere.  _

"Oh, I have it! I have one." 

He slammed down a card. 

_ Library of Alexandria: Premium Membership.  _

The receptionist took it. She squinted even harder and rubbed her thumb over it; the material wasn't even plastic. She looked up. 

"Sorry, sir, but this isn't an acceptable form of identification." ( _ "He even had a fake ID. It wasn't even that convincing." _ )

He remembered then, with a nervous laugh as he took back the card, that there was no Library of Alexandria in this universe. "Oops. Sorry. Listen, could we possibly take care of this later? I promise I have ID, it's just, my wife-" 

He pointed over his shoulder at a pale young woman in blue. She was slumped in one of the rickety plastic waiting room chairs, staring at a magazine without actually reading it. 

"You see, my wife is having a bit of a lot of trouble breathing."

"Wife? I don't see any wedding ring." 

A beat of silence. He didn't really know how this could possibly matter, if not for the receptionist playing some awful, awful game. 

"Well. Um." 

He could have sworn he saw her smile. 

"We don't believe in wedding rings."

Another, longer, skeptical silence. 

She squinted at him. 

"We're hippies." 

_ Come on.  _

"Oh! I have a cousin who lives in a convent in Alabama, I think. Do hippies usually wear their wedding rings around their necks? Where I'm from, that means your spouse has passed," said the receptionist, causing Damien to lean forward, bug-eyed, screaming silently, _ I beg your pardon?  _

She made a looping motion around her neck. He clutched at his throat and looked at the silver necklace he had been sure had been hidden behind his shirt. His old wedding band hung heavily. 

"Ex-spouse, and she's not dead, we're just not on good speaking terms." He shoved the necklace back under his shirt. 

"Mmmmhmm, interesting. Well, let me just pull up your file- what did you say your name was?" 

"Damien Salazar." 

The receptionist turned to her Windows Vista computer. She typed a bit. One finger after the other. Excruciatingly. Slowly. 

Her finger rolled the mouse. So. 

Slowly. 

" _ Christ almighty _ !" 

Damien slammed his hands on the blotchy green counter; a cup of dried-out Bic pens and a bottle of hand sanitizer shook. "My sincerest apologies. May I remind you, this is an Urgent Care." 

He took a breath, narrow ribs expanding through his shirt. "This is urgent! And she needs care!" 

 

* * *

Asteria wasn't sure where she was, or what an Urgent Care is...

...or why there were little bottles of thick, bubbly, clear liquid on every table. Nor did she understand the fast-paced, consonant-heavy language which Damien used with the front desk lady, who was hidden behind a flat pane of glass. And it was a mystery how those pictures were  moving across the front of that chunky black box fixated up on the wall- somehow- or what these magazines strewn on the side tables were with popping colors and scantily clad women. 

She jumped as two nurses passed by, chattering meaningless garble. The double doors in the back slammed shut, swung open, slammed shut. 

Her deep purple eyes flitted about anxiously. 

That high-pitched ringing sound started back up, ceaseless. It was giving her a damn migraine. 

And she prayed for someone to turn off that inane black box; the little people inside were just gibbering nonsense.

Chatter. The door. 

_ Ring ring! _

Something impatient bubbled inside of her. She couldn't take much more of this. 

"Hey, are those colored contacts?" said a blonde-bobbed woman. 

It took Asteria a moment to realize she was being talked to. She could only stare at the woman sitting next to her. There was a cheery look on her face that didn't belong in a hospital waiting room. 

_ What is she saying?! _

"Sorry, I was just thinking of getting some the next time I go to my optometrist," said the woman, oblivious to the terrorized confusion in Asteria's eyes. "They're so pretty. You can see out of them without everything looking purple, right?" 

Asteria stood up. 

"Excuse me," she said, in a language the woman could not possibly know, and stormed over to her husband. 

"...this is an  _ Urgent Care _ !" he was saying, gesticulating wildly to a rather frazzled receptionist. "This is urgent, and she needs care!" He flung his arms out. 

"Ow!" 

Asteria held her face. Damien snapped toward her, bewildered and having nearly jumped out of his shoes. 

"Sorry, dear! Didn't see you. What are you doing out of your seat?" 

"I came to check on you. You look agitated. What's wrong?" 

"Yes, well. Just trying to get you seen. Perhaps we should go somewhere else. The service here is positively ghastly." 

Further, he rather didn't like being reminded of certain things by a certain prying receptionist. But he wouldn't tell Asteria this. 

He could feel the old ring under his clothes pressing coldly into his chest. As if it was demanding attention; the spirit of someone who should have been long forgotten. 

"And I don't like their attitudes," he added tightly. 

"Where are you two from?" the receptionist piped up. "That's an interesting language. Venezuela, right?" 

Asteria held her head, bracing herself for another migraine. "Sure. Lead the way, darling." 

Facing away, Damien pinched the air, and a hole in the space between them and the rickety plastic waiting room chairs opened up. It stretched, like a magical celestial yawn. The receptionist screaming behind him, he pulled Asteria into the void. He didn't usually do this in front of  _ pedestrians _ ; it causes quite a bit of a stir. He noted to avoid this particular Universe for a while. Oh, well. 

At least now that horridly nosey receptionist would have a _ real _ story to tell. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asteria belongs to batterwitch.tumblr.com  
> Thanks to my dear friend Rissa for proofreading this chapter!


	3. Dead Girl Walking

Damien pinched the air. A yawning hole in space opened up between them and the rickety plastic waiting room chairs. The receptionist screamed behind him. Before anyone could do anything, he hopped through. 

Asteria hesitated. "Where are we going?"

"A place. Come  _ on _ , Miss Asteria." 

He made an impatient motion for her to hurry it along. The portal may have been a magical, nearly impossible and overpowered rift through time and space, but that was no reason to assume it would stay open forever. These things take effort. 

"That isn't much of an answer….” But she didn't pursue it. She stepped in through the hole. 

The tip of her boot caught on the portal’s rim; she stumbled over herself just as the hole closed with a soft pop. The scarred faces of the blonde woman and the receptionist disappeared, as if they were never there, and in their place was an empty sky and rolling hills of dirt. 

“So where was that?” she asked. “And where is here?” 

The place they’d landed in was medieval and weary. It was silent; maybe this wasn’t a busy town. In a circular sort of way, perfectly straight stone houses surrounded a great black pit in the middle, which was lined with cautionary stones. All around the town were towering stone walls, and towering stone  _ towers _ , and hills sloping upward. There was a burnt smell lingering in the air. Asteria noticed a woman in a heavy robe, who was standing at the edge of a cliff, with bonfire burning softly beside her. It didn’t look like she was paying much attention to anything. 

"The place we just were was a particularly unhelpful Urgent Care," Damien grumbled. He started closer to the town. 

She struggled to keep up with his long strides. "And what is _ that _ ?” 

He made a noncommittal sound.

It was, to her, a very familiar sound. 

No matter; it was just as well that he’d saved his breath. The trip would turn out to be just as pointless as the last. They spent an hour in the village, Damien and a medical man arguing, shoving rusty coins around a squat table, in yet another foreign language that Asteria couldn’t understand. It ended with the medical man saying something that appeared to be rather rude. Damien had rolled his eyes and dragged Asteria back into the void. 

“We’ll just have to try again.” And again. 

And again. It was a place called _ New York _ , and they’d seen something called a  _ gastro-enter-ologist.  _

And again; this place was called Galifrey. She wasn’t sure what the medical man here was called. 

And again, in an undisclosed area with flashing lights and metal buildings. 

And again, and again, and. At his stubborn insistence, Asteria followed him from world to world to world, without rest, without a pit-stop or a break. 

Silently she watched on as Damien talked to, yelled at, argued, bargained, and pleaded with all sorts of people in all sorts of different worlds. Again. 

And again. He grumbled curse words at the gastro-enter-ologist. 

And again. He got into a shouting match with a shaman. 

And again. Asteria had to stop him from throwing a punch at a well-meaning man in a white coat. 

It was an endlessly pursuit for an answer in a foreign place. Honestly, she wasn’t sure how much sense that made. 

Really, she just wanted to drag her exhausted body home and have some tea. 

Damien, on his part, was trying his best to keep it off his face, but it was obvious that their string of

failures were agitating him, making him more and more desperate and increasingly angry. He had started to babble and ramble, as he always does when he's close to busting a gasket. In the midst of his angry haze, he had nearly left her behind not once, not twice, but  _ three _ times. 

"Dumb people. Dumb,  _ stupid  _ people.  _ Doctors  _ indeed...." 

 

* * *

 

"Perhaps the colony on Alpha Centauri in Universe 12.9,” he was saying. “It's supposed to be nice this time of year, or is that in the winter, I forgot, oh well, let's go anyway..." His words were all melting together. 

"Slow down, please! You're going to fast for me. I don't know what I'd do if...." she trailed off. 

"Yeah?" 

"Nevermind." 

"Alright.” 

 She was no longer walking at his side, but dragging her tired legs just a bit behind him. Just a moment ago, she’d had to scream his name-  _ “Damien!”-  _ to get him to realize that she was on the other side of a quickly-closing portal. She’d nearly been stranded on the other side of the multiverse. It was a terrifying thought. 

Imagine it: lightyears and lightyears away from your home. What would _ you _ do? What if there was no doorway back? And what if you were alone? And what if it was a completely foreign place? You’d be stuck in a different culture, deaf to their language. There would be no one there to explain that you’re different and in need of help. 

Asteria wasn’t sure what she would do. 

Why- _ I  _ would die. 

“Dear, let me talk to this man in the building over here,” Damien was saying. “I’ll be back. Stay here.” 

Asteria, however, was distracted with a sudden revelation. She felt like her head was underwater. 

Because-  _ I’d be at a complete loss by myself,  _ it occurred to her. Damien never stopped to explain anything to her when they were traveling. She didn't know any different languages, or the names for any so-called 'modern' thing, besides  _ car  _ and  _ toaster. _

There were books he'd translated for her, food he’d introduced to her, shows he took her to watch. Constantly, he would aim to impress her with sunsets you could only see from the top of the world; show her sculptures which only existed in a _ specific _ nook of a  _ particular _ Universe during a  _ precise _ time period. It was all wonderful. She appreciated it. Really. 

But she always let him drive the car- so to speak- which can be fun, if your intergalactic host and boyfriend is mysterious and aloof and has the habit of emerging dramatically from the shadows. But all that gets old eventually. You start to question things.

And it didn’t have to be this way. 

Damien, whether intentionally or not, had set it up to be this way. This was out of either sheer stupidity or because of something much more complicated. 

"96.6." 

"What?" she asked, dazed. Damien emerged from the doorway of a wood house. 

"That's the Universe ID number, in case you were wondering," he explained. 

She had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. 

“Maybe we should just go home.” 

“ _ What? _ What do you mean?” He was shouting. “We haven’t found our answer yet! We’re not even close- what- what if you get worse, what if-” 

Unbeknownst to him, she had, indeed, been getting worse. Her lungs had been filling up consistently with flower petals as each hour of the day had passed. This he would have noticed, that is, if he hadn’t been so caught up in himself. 

**“Damien.”**

She’d put her foot down, and that was that. He swayed under the crippling look she shot him. 

And then he sighed. And then they went home, empty handed. 

 

* * *

 

 

"I thought I said that  _we are going home."_

But, of course, they still needed answers. 

"Just one more place." 

Damien and Asteria, appearing from nothing, walked into a dim, wet room, the scent of mold clinging to the air like an expired Glade air freshener. It was the palace laboratory, in Vesuvia. Two heads popped up from where they'd been bent at a laboratory table. Asteria warmed at the sight of them. Perhaps, here, they would find their answers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asteria belongs to batterwitch.tumblr.com. Thanks to my sister, Cactus, for beta-reading.


End file.
